Etihad Airways has purchased India’s Jet Airways’ three pairs of slots at London Heathrow airport for $70 million. The Abu Dhabi carrier, which is in discussions over taking a substantial equity stake in the Indian airline, said the deal was part of a sale and leaseback arrangement, in which Jet Airways would continue to use the slots to operate flights to London.

Virgin Atlantic doesn’t belong to any of the big three airline alliances, and the airline commands a coveted 304 slots (3.3%) at Heathrow, and Delta lusts for access to them....And, for now, at least, reports indicated that Delta and Virgin are discussing a transatlantic joint venture, which would have a combined 332 slots at Heathrow.

If Air France-KLM eventually joins in with Virgin and Delta, then together they would command 686 slots at Heathrow, which is a greater presence than Skyteam’s entire current allotment of 601 slots at the airport.

Even if you add Virgin’s 304 allocations to Skyteam, for argument’s sake, bringing the total to 905 slots, the alliance would still be a distant third to Star Alliance’s 1,638 slots, let alone Oneworld’s 5,596.

However, with Delta’s paltry 28 slots at Heathrow, or 446 per week if you count joint operations with Air France and KLM, it’s clear that the Atlanta-based carrier has to do something dramatic to improve its access to more lucrative long-haul routes from Heathrow.

Virgin Atlantic Limited says its revenue increased by five per cent to £2.87 billion, leading to improved airline load factors to 79 per cent (up by 1.3 per cent) with continued strong cash position of £412.3 million. The new figures were contained in the airline’s financial results for the year ending February 28, 2013.

In its accounts, the group showed increased revenues but highlighted rising costs, which impacted significantly on overall performance.

The group’s pre-tax loss of £69.9 million, which comprises an airline loss of £93 million...

Delta plans transatlantic shuttle service with Virgin
Author - Tom Otley - 24 May 2013

Delta wants to start a shuttle service between New York's JFK Terminal 4 and Heathrow's Terminal 3, the airline's CEO has revealed.

Delta boss Richard Anderson said: "Once we have gained the requisite approvals from the EU, Britain and the US our intention is to operate a joint Delta / Virgin shuttle from Terminal 4 into London Heathrow T3."

"[At the JFK end] that means we can use both lounges - the new SkyClub and the Clubhouse. If you look at the passenger survey data, the number one rated business product in the US to Europe market is Virgin Atlantic and number two is Delta, so they will join together to offer the very best service to the business traveller between JFK and Heathrow."

Under the proposed joint venture, Delta and Virgin Atlantic would co-ordinate schedules, network planning, pricing and sales between North America and the UK. The operation would be similar to that already run by British Airways and American Airlines across the Atlantic.

The two carriers would operate a total of 31 daily round trip flights between the UK and North America, 23 of which would operate at Heathrow. The airlines also plan to implement codesharing, reciprocal frequent flier benefits and shared lounge access.

The carriers are also seeking anti-trust immunity for five-way coordination on UK-US traffic flows so that Delta can continue to effectively operate its existing joint venture with European airlines Air France, KLM and Alitalia, alongside this proposed agreement with Virgin.

Anderson said that he envisaged that if regulator approval came through, it would do so in the "third quarter of this year".